After 21-year old Abigail Burroughs succumbed to cancer in 2001, her family created an organization to help give terminally ill patients access to what Abigail was denied: potentially life-saving drugs not approved for such purposes by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Fortunately, after much criticism the FDA now routinely grants access to patients requesting such drugs, and most state governments have enacted so-called right-to-try laws. These are steps in the right direction, but more could be done.

Terminally ill patients and their families would have even more hope if Congress passes SB 204, a national right-to-try bill that gives patients access to experimental drugs without having to get FDA permission, explains Independent Institute Research Fellow Raymond March, in an op-ed for The Hill. Passing such a law, he notes, would require its supporters to overcome political opposition.

Remarkably, opponents of right-to-try laws cite safety concerns for their favoring that the FDA continue to have veto power over the decisions of terminally ill patients and their physicians. Opponents also worry that experimental drug treatments create false hope. What is truly false hope for the terminally ill, March writes, is to leave life-and-death decisions to politicians and federal regulators. Allowing them unwarranted and unneeded influence only works to deny these patients from a chance to prolong their life. The alternative, although less risky, is certainly worse.

Nations moving toward capitalism enjoy more personal liberties as well as greater wealth. This shouldnt be controversial, and yet a recent opinion poll of Millennials found that only 42 percent favored capitalism, compared to 51 percent who advocated socialism and another 7 percent who identified with communism. Whats going on? Whatever the cause, its not the result of careful observation. As Independent Institute Senior Fellow Benjamin Powell explains in an op-ed for The Daily Caller, one need not look back at history to Stalins gulags or Pol Pots killing fields to see that socialismreal socialism, that is, government ownership of the means of productionleads to misery.

Every year, The Economic Freedom of the World Annual Index provides evidence of how countries fare as they move toward or away from capitalism. Estonia, the most impressive gainer of the former Soviet Unions satellite countries, has moved up in the economic-freedom rankings to 17th place; incomes are up 461 percent since 1995, when Estonians were still finding their post-socialist footing. China has risen up the scale 76 percent since 1980; average incomes are now twelve times higher than in 1995. Even Russia, the former Motherland of hard-core socialism (see The Independent Reviews Fall 2017 issue for a fascinating symposium on the 100th anniversary of the Russian Revolution), has climbed to the upper half of the economic-freedom ladder, and poverty there has fallen 23 percent since the mid-1990s.

Millennials could delve into history books to learn about Socialist atrocities, Powell writes. But they could also just look at the facts of the world and see how prosperity has increased as the former socialist countries have begun embracing capitalism. If theyd do either, I doubt youd find many socialists among them.

Octobers regional elections led to victory for President Nicolás Maduro and defeat for the opposition. Having won 17 of 23 governorships, Maduros party claims popular support. In reality, however, the election was anything but fair, according to Independent Institute Research Fellow Alvaro Vargas Llosa.

Maduros success at the polls, Vargas Llosa explains in a piece for The Daily Caller, resulted mainly from two factors: government-rigged electoral fraud, including voter intimidation, and the disenchantment of would-be voters, including a mass exodus of Venezuelans from their homeland. Under these circumstances, it is senseless to expect a meaningful and conclusive audit, as Europe, the United States, and twelve other nations in the Western Hemisphere have urged.

Also, it didnt help that Maduros opponents were politically divided, with the Democratic Unity Roundtable agreeing to participate in the elections while prominent leaders of the opposition movement, such as former Caracas mayor Antonio Ledezma, called for a boycott. Venezuelas near-term future looks bleakthe governments recent default on its scheduled debt payments likely foreshadows a fiscal death spiral, as Independent Institute Research Fellow Craig Eyermann notes at MyGovCost News & Blogbut all is not lost for the long term. If opposition forces inside and outside Venezuela build, this may force a fatal split among the governments supporters, creating an opportunity for real negotiations with the ruling party or even the collapse of the Maduro regime.